


In the hope of open hands

by SkyScribbles



Series: A thousand fingerprints on the surfaces of who I am [13]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Blood and Injury, Caleb Fails Wisdom Saves, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional and Physical hurt/comfort, Established Relationship, Forehead Touching, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Post C2E99, The Monster Manual is full of angst potential, Trent is not technically there but his presence is felt, but nothing too graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:27:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24002818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkyScribbles/pseuds/SkyScribbles
Summary: Essek extends a hand towards the base of Caleb’s neck. Then freezes, as if he doesn't quite dare to touch. His fingertips hover over Caleb’s throat, a breath away from the pale streak of a scar, the place where a Sourger’s shiv struck home and sprayed blood over the walls of the Dungeon of Penance.‘I did this,’ Essek says. His voice is quiet enough to scrape in his throat. ‘I allowed this to happen.’(In which Caleb and Essek confront demons - in more ways than one - and discuss forgiveness.)
Relationships: Essek Thelyss/Caleb Widogast
Series: A thousand fingerprints on the surfaces of who I am [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1874992
Comments: 38
Kudos: 508





	In the hope of open hands

**Author's Note:**

> I was browsing DnD monster lists and I... discovered something interesting. So here's the resulting fic, set in a future where Essek has made some progress on the redemption thing, and the wizards have made progress on the doing-more-than-pining thing. Though this is part of a series, you don't need to have read the other works to follow this one.
> 
> I've been deliberately vague about the situation with the Scourger, since we still don't know whether Essek armed her.

The universe, Caleb knows, does not have a will. The gods have desires, yes; even nature has a vague purpose towards endurance and survival – but the world itself simply _is._ There is no reason. No goal.

In his less logical moments, however, Caleb rather feels that the world has one very clear purpose: to make a mockery of him. After all, it is very frustrating to consider that three days after pulling his shit together for long enough to kiss Essek Thelyss, he is quite possibly going to die. 

Caleb clenches his teeth, hard enough for the impact to resonate through his jaw, and wrenches his arms free of the chains constricting his upper body. Fumbles for his component pouch with bruised, numb hands. The most expedient way out of this catastrophe would be to snatch up his cat’s cradle and torch the creature whose chains bind him, but – as another piece of evidence that the universe is laughing at him – the abyssal rift spat out a posse of chain devils, and fire is useless against them.

He _hates_ it when fire is useless.

It was Essek who brought them news of this newest Rift, spewing out fiends far too close to comfort to the Ashguard Garrison. A near-perfect teleport brought them here – and then Essek stayed, as he almost always does, now, when the Cult of the Angel of Irons is involved. He walked along with the rest of them, eyes narrowed, refusing to float, ignoring mud and undergrowth snagging at his boots, and Caleb saw in his eyes a resolve that he's intimately familiar with.

 _No more children on the pyre,_ Caleb told Caduceus, months ago. _No more dead in this fortress's graves,_ Essek’s eyes said as he stamped through the marshland, and Caleb vehemently agrees.

As they neared the rift, the chain devils began a long and eerie game. Telepathic whispers crooned inside their heads; chains rattled and shadows flitted between the straggly pines. Once or twice the fiends burst into the open and lashed out with barb-tipped chains - then retreated before Beau or Yasha could close the distance.

In the fourteen minutes before the beasts struck in earnest, Veth dissolved into a twitchy wreck, firing randomly at anything that moved, and Fjord let out a stream of profanity and appeals to the Wildmother whenever a twig snapped. When the final ambush came – well. The Mighty Nein were not, perhaps, presenting anything that could be called a well-coordinated defence.

Hence the current situation: Caleb, ensnared in chains, slashed half to shreds with barbs, and really quite worried that he’s about to die.

 _It’s fine. All of this is perfectly manageable._ His hands find the cocoon in his pouch, and he strains against the chains to pull it free. _So what if you can’t use fire, and you can’t move, and you’re bleeding profusely? Caduceus or Jester will be there any moment. It’s all going very well –_

Feet pound on the rain-slick ground. The chain devil turns with a snarl as Yasha charges through the trees towards them, the Skingorger lifted above her head.

_Or Yasha. She works too._

She’s only a few feet away, pulling her arms back for the strike, and maybe Caleb isn’t completely doomed after all – and then the chain devil smiles. Shimmers. And its form twists and flickers, the reddish skin and clawed hands vanishing, the illusion taking hold to leave the image of a woman. A stranger. Her hair is braided; her face bears markings, like dark paint. Her eyes are fixed on Yasha, who –

Who slams to a halt. The sword hangs loose in her hand. Her eyes stretch wide, her face goes blank with horror, and as the creature's chains lash out at her she barely seems to register the pain.

Caleb looks from Yasha to the illusionary woman and back again, and thinks, _oh._

And then he finds he is very, very angry.

He rips the cocoon from his component pouch and slashes out the polymorph spell glyph in the air. His body swells, the chains lose purchase and fall away, and the pain vanishes behind the comforting dullness of the giant ape’s mind. Caleb clenches his fists and snarls, a cold ferocity seething in his gut, because how _dare_ it? How dare this creature use Yasha’s wife against her? How dare it wear that face?

A glance over his shoulder makes the rage seethe harder. Fjord is breathing hard, backing up, eyes fixed on the fish-like monstrosity that once drove a blade through his chest. A little distance away, Beau shakes off the flash of terror that passes over her face, and lunges forward at the illusion of Isharnai. And Essek –

 _Essek._ Even behind the ape’s numbed emotions, Caleb’s insides lurch. Essek is staring - lips apart, fingers frozen in mid-cast - at a figure too deep in the trees for Caleb to make out. His hands are shaking.

Caleb roars. Bares every jagged tooth he has. His fist swings, connects with the chain devil’s chest; bones crunch and the creature staggers, the vision of Zuala flickering out. Good. _Good._ He will stop this. He will _end_ this creature and then the rest of them are next, he will not let these creatures haunt his friends who are already haunted enough, he will not die, he will _stop this_. He plants his feet firm, pulls back his fist for another strike –

And meets the eyes of Trent Ikithon.

Trent Ikithon.

Trent, standing on the rain-soaked ground, barbed chains dangling from his hands.

Trent, and Caleb’s fist drops to his side, fingers loose.

Trent.

_Trent –_

No. No. It’s not him. This is still the fiend. It’s not Trent it is _not Trent_ it is another illusion and it is _not-_

But the thin lips are curving upwards and that is Trent’s smile, those are his eyes, and the polymorph spell shatters and Caleb is frozen in his own torn flesh, blood on his lips, fire in his head, crystals in his arms, seventeen years old and his home is an inferno –

From a million worlds away, a blow to his chest. A screaming jolt of pain. Caleb falls, and the devil lashes out its chains to catch him, leaving him dangling in the metal grasp with his scarf brushing the ground. Greyness seeps into the edges of his vision. Another chain sweeps, slashes. Blood on the pine needles.

Through a haze of grey, Trent’s face smiles down at him. The choking grip of the chains clenches tighter. The barbed tips sweep around to rest against Caleb’s throat.

And then there is a howl.

Not Common. Not Zemnian. He doesn’t know the words – but he knows the voice. Knows the voice even through the haziness and the screams in his head. Knows it even though he never knew this voice could sound so hoarse and broken and terrified.

With the last bit of strength left in them, Caleb’s lips shape, ‘Essek.’

And then there’s blackness. For a moment, he thinks that he’s fallen unconscious; then it occurs to him that if he were unconscious, he wouldn’t be able to think about it. The blackness is simply billowing out in the air in front of him – and Trent is gone. _Gone._ Engulfed by a conjured void as dark as the space between stars.

The chains go slack, and Caleb crashes to the earth. He can feel the wrenching tug of Essek’s Dark Star brushing close to his toes, but he is in no danger. The creature is dead, and Essek has never misjudged a spell in his life.

His lungs heave for air. Blood bubbles against his tongue. Caleb stares into the blackness that saved him and orders his stupid, broken body to just fucking _live –_

Footsteps. Hands grasping his shoulders. And Essek’s voice, frantic, so beautifully familiar. ‘Caleb. Caleb – ’

The blackness bleeds across Caleb’s vision. _Ah. This time I really might be falling unconscious._

And he does.

* * *

Only for a few seconds, of course.

He wakes with pink lichen covering his wounds and Essek’s hands gripping his arm. The blacker-than-black void of the Dark Star is still shuddering in the air; at its edges, Yasha is tugging the Skingorger free from the flank of a now-limp devil. Further away, another fiend reels back to avoid Jester’s giant lollipop, only to meet the Star Razor, descending in a shimmering arc. There’s a flash, a resonant boom – and for an instant, Caleb smells the sea. Then the last fiend is on the floor at Fjord’s feet, coral blossoming on its chest from where the smite crushed the life from it.

There’s quiet. The Dark Star fades. Caleb spits out some of the blood and leaf litter in his mouth, and tries to sit up.

Essek’s hands catch him. He’s not a strong man by any means – it’s the look on his face, not the strength behind his grasp, that makes Caleb stop.

‘Don’t,’ Essek says, very quietly.

Caleb swallows. The rift. There will be an anchor. They must find it. Close the rift. This is his job; find magic and dispel it. He needs to stand, he needs to find the anchor, the pain doesn’t _matter,_ can’t Essek see that, he’s not dying anymore and he’s fit to walk (that creature looked like Trent it was _Trent)_ and Caleb needs to _find the anchor –_

Essek’s eyes narrow. _‘Caleb.’_

A pause. A thought pierces through the memory of Trent’s smiling face: Essek is afraid. Essek needs Caleb to stay still.

Caleb lets out an aching breath and sinks back down. He’s dimly aware of Beau, Yasha and the clerics spreading out into the trees in search of the anchor, Veth racing to his side to give him an angry but careful hug, Fjord kneeling next to him and emptying his pool of divine energy into the half-healed wounds. And Caleb lets them do it, because Essek needs him to. Five minutes later, the others return to report that Jester has dispelled the rift, the Magician's Judge has put paid to the anchor, and they all need to sleep immediately.

Neither Caleb nor Essek has the spells left to teleport, so Caleb staggers upright and pitches the dome, while Caduceus talks to a very quiet Fjord and Jester and Beau talk to an even quieter Yasha. It's comforting, going through the spell's familiar motions. Calms some of the panicked fog in his head. Then he volunteers for the first watch, because he knows Essek will volunteer to join him, and Caleb very badly wants to talk to him.

They don’t talk, though, not at first. Instead they sit for three and a half minutes, saying nothing, shoulders brushing. Then Essek turns and murmurs an incantation. His fingertips trail over the front of Caleb's coat, and the blood rises from the fabric and dissolves like smoke into the air.

Caleb sits, eyes closed, as Essek’s fingers guide the prestidigitation spell over his body. The blood lifts from his clothes, his skin, his hair, and Caleb feels his breathing steady at last. Trent's face fades from his head. Because Essek is cleaning the blood from him, and it's - it's warm. Soothing. Intimate, in a way Caleb is still adjusting to. 

He doesn’t mind adjusting. Some new experiences are worth the discomfort of unfamiliarity. These experiences he’s sharing with Essek are among them.

‘That seems to be all of it.’ Caleb opens his eyes to see Essek scanning his body for any missed specks of blood. ‘You should have asked Jester to cast Mending on your clothes before she went to sleep.’

Caleb glances down at the tattered remains of his jacket. ‘I will ask her tomorrow.’

‘It’s _cold,’_ Essek says, and when Caleb doesn’t answer, shrugs off his own jacket and slips it over Caleb’s shoulders with a firmness that tells Caleb not to bother arguing. A few more moments of quiet; then Essek coughs and says, ‘So, um. How are you feeling?’

Caleb would smile – Essek really is getting better at this conversation thing – but the devil took Trent’s face, and the pain of it is lingering. ‘Better than I would have been if this had happened a year ago, and much better than I would have been if you hadn't been there. But...' He slides his hand into Essek's. 'I am feeling foolish, more than anything. That creature, I – I knew it wasn't him. And I still –’

Essek reaches across to straighten Caleb’s lapels. Brushes a stray hair into place. ‘Then I am a fool as well, because I thought it was him too. Even though I had already seen those creatures casting illusions. When I saw you on the ground, with him standing over you, I – I thought for a moment that I had left a loose end untied. That I had somehow led him to you.’ Essek’s gaze drops to the ground. ‘Perhaps breaking out that particular spell in retribution was, ah, a little excessive. But quite aside from needing that thing dead very badly, I… didn’t want you to have to see him. Not for a moment longer than I could help.’

Caleb swallows, and pulls Essek’s jacket a little tighter around himself. ‘Did you see someone too?’

A nod. Caleb runs through a mental list of the illusory cruelties flung at them: feared enemies. Lost loved ones. ‘Your father?’

Another nod. Caleb reaches out with his free hand to touch Essek’s arm – and Essek tenses, in a way he hasn’t in months when Caleb’s moved to touch him. Startled, Caleb freezes too. He has become so used, perhaps too used, to the lack of distance between them.

Moments crawl by. Then Essek swallows and says, ‘I’m – I’m sorry. That was a lie. I do hope deception stops being a reflex, some day.’

He chuckles, that rueful, self-mocking little sound that Caleb’s so familiar with now. Caleb squeezes his hand. ‘You know, you don’t have to tell me what you saw. I can think of few things that are more, um. Personal.’

Essek snorts. ‘Personal. You could say that, yes.’

He slips his hand out of Caleb's grip and fiddles with the hem of his tunic. Breathes out from behind gritted teeth. Caleb puts his hand on Essek’s arm, and, meeting no tension this time, waits. And, at last –

‘It was myself, Caleb. I saw myself.'

Oh.

'As I looked before I met you,' Essek adds, hastily. 'Shorter hair. You know. And I - _it_ looked at the rest of you with so much hatred. So much delight in the pain it was causing you. Seeing that on my own face, it was -’

He stops, his fingers clenching tight into his shirt. Caleb licks his still-bruised lips, and decides that chain devils should be very glad they are all dead, because he feels beyond murderous in this moment. ‘It was an illusion. A lie. You never wanted to cause us pain, even before you saw us as friends. And you have grown. You’re not your own enemy. You’re not ours.’

A bitter laugh falls from Essek’s lips, and he holds out his hands, palms up. They're still caked in dark red. ‘I quite literally have your blood on my hands, Caleb.’

‘ _Ja,_ from when you held me after _saving_ me –’

‘But it isn't the first time. You know it isn't. Today, I saw you on the ground, bleeding, with that creature’s blades against your throat, and Ikithon was there, or I thought he was, and I realised – it is not the first time I have allowed his will to almost be the death of you.’

Essek extends a hand towards the base of Caleb’s neck. Then freezes, as if he doesn't quite dare to touch. His fingertips hover over Caleb’s throat, a breath away from the pale streak of a scar, the place where a Sourger’s shiv struck home and sprayed blood over the walls of the Dungeon of Penance.

‘I did this,’ Essek says. His voice is quiet enough to scrape in his throat. ‘I allowed this to happen.’

And Caleb doesn’t know if that means _I armed the Scourger, I loosed her chains,_ or if it means _I wasn’t fast enough to stop her._ But it doesn’t matter. He isn’t angry, either way. He won’t ask until Essek is ready to tell, because that was the Essek of a year ago, and the Essek of now is watching him through fearful, anguished eyes, as if waiting to be pushed away. Essek of now has changed. It has cost him so much and hurt him so deeply, and he changed anyway, in the name of love.

Love for his friends. Love for the person he wanted to become. Love for _Caleb._ It is humbling.

Caleb raises his hand, wraps his fingers over Essek’s, and presses them down that final millimetre, over the scar. He hears Essek’s breath flutter a little; knows that Essek can feel his pulse, feel his breathing, feel the life in him. ‘Did it change things for you? Seeing this happen?'

‘It did. I didn't want it to, of course. I tried to tell myself it didn't.’ Essek’s fingertips trace the edges of the scar. ‘I had thought that the loss of one of you, even all of you, if things went poorly, would be a pity. I would have regretted the deaths of people who were so undeserving. But I didn’t think it would _hurt,_ particularly _._ And then she struck you, and I was… so angry with her. I realised what it would mean to me, to have even one of you gone from my life.’

His breath is coming faster. ‘And then that very evening you invited me into your home. You called me a friend. And I was the reason you were hurt, and I had betrayed you in so many ways, and it was the first time I had felt anything resembling guilt in over a century.’

The hand against Caleb’s throat is shaking. Caleb raises his free hand, wraps it around the side of Essek’s head, and pulls him in to press their foreheads together. ‘Listen –’

‘I am sorry, Caleb. I’m sorry for this, for everything, and I’m sorry it took me so long to be sorry –’

‘Essek –’

‘And you all keep letting me stay with you, you let me into your life, your home, and _you_ let me into your heart, and I – Caleb, I still cannot promise that at any moment I will not slip back into old habits. I worry every day that someone will offer me a cup of venom and I will be selfish again and drink –’

‘Essek. _I forgive you.’_

Silence, for a moment, broken by Yasha's snoring. Caleb swallows. There it is, then, out in the air between them. And Caleb wishes he had said it sooner, but forgiving your living mirror – that has implications for yourself. Implications that he isn’t sure he’s ready to face.

Essek has gone still. A second passes, and another.

‘ _Why?’_ Essek says at last, and they're close enough for Caleb to feel the word against his skin.

‘Because I choose to.’

‘I do not deserve it.’

‘But you need it.’

Essek twists his head away. Clenches his hands together, and shakes his head, and grimaces like he did when Caleb took hold of his face in the hold of a ship, so long ago –

And he _cries._

Quietly, of course, pressing his lips together so tightly that his jaw shakes. He turns his whole body aside, like he can’t bear for Caleb to see this, wraps his arms around his torso and rocks slowly back and forth. Chokes out, ‘I’m – I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m –’ 

And Caleb understands, of course. Understands how painful kindness can be.

So he pulls Essek against him, cradling his head against the shoulder of his coat, running his fingers through white hair that’s slowly growing longer. Waits for Essek to stop shaking, then presses his lips to the top of his head.

‘You know, I, um, I couldn’t face him. Trent.’ Every word stirs Essek’s hair, ever so gently. ‘I couldn’t do it. My old life came back to bite me in the ass, and there you were. You were afraid that you led him to me, and you think you might do it again, but… you were there, and you hid his face. Looked after me. Kept me alive. You lead me _away_ from him, Essek. Every day.’

Essek makes an odd noise, like a sob that turned into a laugh halfway. ‘Then you are looking into a mirror again. After all, you did the same for me.’

Caleb smiles, and leans back. ‘Can I see your hands?’

Without looking up, Essek offers his palms. Caleb takes them, squeezes them tight, and nods towards the red stains. ‘You’re being kinder to me than you are to yourself.’

Essek snorts. ‘And you are one to talk.'

But he pulls one hand free, and casts one last prestidigitation. The blood lifts from his palms and is gone.

Caleb leans closer, and kisses Essek with all the intensity that his torn lips will allow. Then he twists Essek gently around, pulls him against his chest, and tucks him under his chin.

The universe is being kind for once. Caleb hopes it stays that way. Because everything about this is unexpectedly snug and warm, and the panicked pain in his gut is gone like it was never there, and for the first time since he was seventeen, he hopes – no, he _believes –_ that a time will come when Trent can no longer touch him. Just like there will be a time when the ghost of Essek’s old self can no longer touch him.

He holds Essek a little tighter. And they both crane back their heads to watch as above them, one by one, the stars fade silently into sight.

**Author's Note:**

> The Chain Devils were using their 'Unnerving Mask' reaction: 'When a creature the devil can see starts its turn within 30 feet of the devil, the devil can create the Illusion that it looks like one of the creature's departed loved ones or bitter enemies. If the creature can see the devil, it must succeed on a DC 14 Wisdom saving throw or be Frightened until the end of its turn.' Having learned more about dnd lore than I knew when I wrote this, I'm now aware that the abyssal rifts bring demons, not devils. I'm going to handwave this because... chain devil angst > accuracy in my opinion.
> 
> Fun fact: I rolled wisdom saves for the Nein to decide who would be affected. Everyone failed but Beau and the clerics. Essek was going to fail for narrative reasons, but I rolled for him anyway, just for fun. He got a Nat 1.)
> 
> Title from 'Five' by Sleeping At Last.


End file.
